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Lira, Uganda | URN | Lira City Council is considering designating Fridays for business owners to clean their premises ahead of the National Cleaning Day observed every last Saturday of the month. The proposal follows concerns that many business owners keep their premises locked during the official cleaning hours, preventing them from participating in the exercise.
City Mayor Sam Atul explained that this time around, the city dwellers have embraced the initiative compared to the first edition, where most people stayed home without participating.
According to him, having business owners clean on Fridays will ensure that every corner of the city is clean. “The Prime Minister had guided that certain cleaning could be done on Friday, and I think we want to buy into that, especially for those of us who do business and go away; they don’t stay at the business premises,” he said.
Patrick Jimmy Okema, the North Kyoga Regional Police spokesperson, acknowledged a similar challenge: many shop owners have not participated in the cleaning exercise because they don’t want to move between 7 and 10 am. He believes that allocating time for them to clean as and when they open would solve the problem.
Okema applauded security officers for enforcing the activity, especially on errant drivers who claim to be having emergencies when they actually do not want to participate.
Meanwhile, Muhammad Ateeq Nawaz, the President of Lira Pakistan Association, is advocating for fines to be levied on dirty business premises that are locked up during the cleaning exercise, saying owners are doing it intentionally to shun the exercise.
Comparing Lira to Kigali City in Rwanda, Ateeq argued that it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that his surroundings and the city at large are clean.
Since July 2026, Uganda has been observing a mandatory National Cleaning Day on the last Saturday of every month from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. to improve public health and sanitation. During this time, nationwide movement of vehicles, motorcycles, bicycles, and vessels is paused, leaving only essential workers, medical personnel, on-duty journalists, diplomats, patients, and cross-border travelers with valid identification or documentation to move.
